Dead of Night

Inspectors Cetin Ikmen and Mehmet Suleyman from Istanbul are sent to a policing conference in Detroit, but little can prepare them for the corruption that lies at its heart. When Ezekial Goins, an elderly man of Turkish descent approaches them to crack the long-unsolved murder of his son, a quiet trip takes a far more sinister turn. As they delve deeper into the case, the pair find themselves immersed in a terrifying world of inter-gang drug war and racial prejudice that puts them in mortal danger, and forces Ikmen to confront some demons of his own...

Opinion

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

Don't pick up this book if you are unfamiliar with Nadel's Turkish characters, events in their past lives, and previous cases they have worked on because there are many such references. While this background info helps well established readers of her series make connections between past and present events in the story and her characters, those new to her novels might not care about reading this background info and more about solving the crimes she presents in the story. Nadel, actually, writes 2 stories in one: Ikmen solving a crime case in Detroit with the help of the DPD and a crime case in Istanbul involving her female detective, Ayse. Instead of giving these two story lines separate chapters, Nadel interweaves the stories in the same chapter...as though to say while this happening here, this is also happening elsewhere at the same time. Although a good read, I much prefer her novels that take place entirely in Istanbul.
This story gives Ikmen a different role to play - a detective attending a conference in Detroit which has similar policing problems to those Ikmen has in Istanbul. The emphasis is on crime in Detroit and touches on many issues common to deterioating cities: racial hatred, unemployment, poverty, project housing, drugs, gangs, and gays.

I have really enjoyed this series up until now. This book digresses from the Istanbul setting which was my original attraction to the series. I also enjoyed the various and sometimes eccentric characters of multicultural Istanbul. The few remaining Turkish characters have lost their charm in this book.
Ms Nadel should really get back to Turkey and the colourful tapestry that gave her inspiration in her earlier books.

This is number 14 in the series and the author seems to be running out of ideas for this series that is more and more wandering away from it's setting inTurkey. This one's set in Detroit, not in Istanbul. The story's somewhat complex, but it was all too easy to see through important parts of it and if I wanted to read a book set in Detroit then I’d read some American thing. And as with the previous book in this series, there are abrupt lurches in the private lives of some of the ongoing police characters, something that a well-thought-out series never has.